TN Hospitals agree to Tax us more...so we can be taxed even more

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Hospital Association has agreed to once again provide a transfusion of funds to help the state's beleaguered TennCare program avoid massive cuts, the group's president said Thursday.

THA President Craig Becker said the group's board agreed to ask Gov. Bill Haslam and the Legislature to extend a hospital "assessment" fee, enacted last year, for an additional 12 months.

In addition, hospitals have agreed to raise the fee, now at 3.52 percent of hospitals' net patient revenues, to 4 percent or a little more, Becker said.

It currently raises about $290 million annually, and the increase would push that to $400 million or $430 million per year, Becker said. The money would be used by the state to draw federal matching funds — providing a total of about $1.2 billion for the estimated $8 billion program.